No playoff births on the line this year but Game 162 has plenty of meaning for teams today...

Yanks need a win or Baltimore loss to clinch the AL East; if they lose and Baltimore wins, however, they'll play a 1-game playoff to decide the division winner. Again, it's worth pointing out that winning the division is HUGE under the new playoff format.

Oakland and Texas just so happen to face off in Game 162 to decide the AL West winner. I would have never expected Oakland to be in the wild card race, let alone have a chance to top Texas and win the division. This should be fun.

Rangers (Dempster) @ Athletics (Griffin), 3:35pm ET, MLB Network

Could you imagine Texas and New York ending up in the Wild Card playoff game? It's not likely at this point, but hey, ya never know.

Nothing really interesting in the NL. Every division leader clinched their division, as have the two wild card spots. The Nats, Reds, and Giants are going to the Divisional Series while St. Louis will go to Atlanta for the Wild Card playoff game on Friday. I guess if you want something, the best record in baseball/#1 seed in the NL is up for grabs between the Nats and Reds, with the Nats just needing a win or Reds loss to clinch it.

The new playoff system has definitely made September more exciting but one thing that bothers me is that a team like the Tigers is going to get rewarded for winning a weak division while teams with much better records, Yankees, Orioles, Rangers, Athletics risk having to play the 1 game play in. Hell, the 3rd place teams in the East (Rays) and West (Angels) will have better records than the Tigers. How do the Tigers deserve an automatic bye into the ALDS???

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RIP Pat Burns -- RIP Alexander Vasyunov and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
Winner of the 2008 Sergei Brylin Award for Most Underrated Poster
Co-Winner of the 2011 Scott Bertoli Award for Best Minor League Poster, Winner of the 2012 Scott Bertoli Award

Eh...that's always been an issue where weak divisions have separation in time for the winner to set pitching while strong divisions don't.

What I think will be more of a problem this year is the DS playoff format, where the lesser seed's two home games come first, and then they go back to the higher seed's home for 3 games. I find it stunning that anyone agreed to this format.

Eh...that's always been an issue where weak divisions have separation in time for the winner to set pitching while strong divisions don't.

What I think will be more of a problem this year is the DS playoff format, where the lesser seed's two home games come first, and then they go back to the higher seed's home for 3 games. I find it stunning that anyone agreed to this format.

It's always been an issue but now that there is a 1 game play in makes it 100000x more frustrating and unreasonable. I also hate the new DS format. If anything I would've kept it the same (travel format) and made it a best of 7. Nothing worse than losing a season in a short playoff series.

Edited by thefiestygoat, 03 October 2012 - 01:43 PM.

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RIP Pat Burns -- RIP Alexander Vasyunov and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
Winner of the 2008 Sergei Brylin Award for Most Underrated Poster
Co-Winner of the 2011 Scott Bertoli Award for Best Minor League Poster, Winner of the 2012 Scott Bertoli Award

Yeah, Cabrera is having another dominant season but Trout by far deserves the AL MVP. In the NL, Buster Posey wasn't really on the MVP scene halfway through the year... then he decided to go ape sh!t: .388/.459/.651 in the 2nd half. Pretty incredible.

Regarding the format, I really don't understand or like the home/away setup of the Divisional Series. I also hate the 1-game playoff between the two wildcards. Think it should be best-of-3 or best-of-5 like the Divisional Series. The extra onus to win your division is kind of the only positive about it.

Edited by nmigliore, 03 October 2012 - 02:26 PM.

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LETS GO METSLETS GO DEVILS

"Take all that clubhouse [expletive] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [expletive] for years. Chemistry don't mean [expletive]."

First player in history to steal 45 bases, score 125 runs and hit 30 home runs in a seasonFirst player in history to hit .320 with 30 HRs and 45 SBs in a seasonFirst rookie ever with a 30 HR/40 SB campaign.Trout joins Ted Williams, Mel Ott and Alex Rodriguez as the only players to hit .320 with 30 HRs during their 20-year-old seasons.He is one of only five players in the Live Ball Era (post 1920) to score at least 130 runs in less than 140 games. Remember, Trout didn't get called up until a few weeks into the season.At 21, he is the youngest player to steal 40 bases in a season since Ty Cobb in 1907.Successful in 49 of 53 stolen base attempts this season (92.5%). Since 1920, only two other players have accomplished a better stolen base success rates in a season.The kid will likely win a Gold Glove, according to FanGraphs, he's saved 22 runs on defense this year which ranks fifth in the Majors.

Oh, and there's the 10.7 WAR, as opposed to Cabrera's 7.2

I think Cabrera will get it because his team went into the playoffs, but I don't think either choice is necessarily wrong.

Nothing more shows the divide between the traditionalists and the "moneyball stat nerds" than this MVP race. Both parties think the decision isn`t even up for debate.

Probably the most accurate thing I've seen written about the AL MVP race yet. It astounds me that the Trout backers think there's NO way Cabrera should win it. It's less surprising most of the Cabrera backers think it's an open and shut case because of the Triple Crown. In this, I lean toward the traditionalistic point of view, especially given Cabrera did better down the stretch than Trout.

The WAR stat means very little to me when you're comparing different positions, of course Trout's 'value' is going to be higher than Cabrera, centerfield is not as deep a position as third base.

And as far as the Cy Young, I don't want to hear about Kimbrel winning it either. You can't give the best pitcher in the league to someone that has 45 meaningful innings pitched when you have two 20-game winners and another worthy candidate in Kershaw. I don't want to hear about Gio Gonzalez either, since he wasn't the most hyped pitcher on his own team and it's a lot different winning 21 for the team with the best record as opposed to 20 for a horse**** team.

Edited by NJDevs4978, 04 October 2012 - 04:18 PM.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

And as far as the Cy Young, I don't want to hear about Kimbrel winning it either. You can't give the best pitcher in the league to someone that has 45 meaningful innings pitched when you have two 20-game winners and another worthy candidate in Kershaw. I don't want to hear about Gio Gonzalez either, since he wasn't the most hyped pitcher on his own team and it's a lot different winning 21 for the team with the best record as opposed to 20 for a horse**** team.

IMO wins are a horrible determinent for Cy Young...if your team sucks the long fatty, 16 wins should be enough for consideration.

So you don't need to be a Maddux brother to see this has somehow evolved into a starting pitcher's award. But it doesn't have to be. In fact, as my friends in the Baseball Writers' Association told me in 2010 when they shot down my proposal for a new relief pitchers' award, the rules clearly say we can vote for a reliever -- and we should, they told me vociferously, if we think a reliever deserves it.

Well, I'll tell you (and them) right now: I think this is one of those years.

Has any starting pitcher in the National League been even remotely as dominating as Craig Kimbrel or Aroldis Chapman? That answer, beyond dispute, is no. And this hasn't been just routine domination. This has been historic levels of domination -- particularly in the case of Kimbrel, who has had possibly the most dominant, overpowering season any NL closer has ever had.

So why should any voters feel compelled to vote for a starter in a season like this, just because there are 20 years of newfound tradition that say they should? I ran that question past one longtime dominating starter -- ESPN's own Curt Schilling -- and he laughed at the idea that starters "deserve" to be considered first.

"I have ZERO bias one way or the other," Schilling wrote, via the miracle of email. "Cy Young is for the BEST pitcher, not most valuable or anything else. When anyone in this game does something that hasn't been done in 112 years [as Kimbrel has], it bears noticing. Relievers, in my opinion, HAVE to have insanely dominant seasons given that they throw 150+ fewer innings than a starter. [But] 'tradition' is something I feel we need to move farther and farther from."

Ready for Kimbrel's historic credentials? Fasten your seat belts. (Note: To rank Kimbrel's place in history, I compared him only to pitchers -- starters or relievers -- who worked at least 50 innings in a season.)

Strikeouts: 105 in 57 1/3 IP, the best strikeout ratio ever (16.5/9 IP)Opponent AVG.: .128, the lowest against any pitcher since 1900Opponent OPS: .368, the lowest against any pitcher in the expansion eraWHIP: 0.68, best by any National League reliever since 1900Percentage of hitters struck out: 49.5 pct., best in live-ball eraStrikeout-to-hit ratio: 105 whiffs, 25 hits (4.2), best of all time

And then there's the other stuff. With runners on base, he's faced 71 hitters -- and allowed a hit to four of them. … With runners in scoring position, he's faced 29 hitters -- and given up a hit to one of them. … Of his past 125 outs, 81 of them have come on strikeouts. … He's had eight outings in which he struck out all three hitters he's faced -- more than Chapman, Fernando Rodney, Jonathan Papelbon, Rafael Soriano, Jim Johnson and Jason Motte combined. … And have we mentioned this man has whiffed 11 more hitters for the season than his rotation amigo, Tim Hudson -- but in 107 1/3 fewer innings?

"He's a special guy," one NL scout said of Kimbrel. "When you go and watch him pitch, it's absolutely amazing. The hitters can't swing and hit the ball. It's that simple. They can't time him. You see guys try to cheat or do everything they can do to hit him. They can't do it."

Looking for a good definition of a Cy Young? "The hitters can't swing and hit the ball" sure works for me. So if I had to vote right now, it would be for Craig Kimbrel. No contest.

Even wins for a bad team isn't enough I agree, but when you combine it with Dickey's other numbers he should be a more than deserving winner. I doubt he gets it though, there's too much anti-knuckleball bias in the establishment.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

The WAR stat means very little to me when you're comparing different positions, of course Trout's 'value' is going to be higher than Cabrera, centerfield is not as deep a position as third base.

I'm sorry but this post is just completely wrong. WAR is designed to compare players across different positions. Fangraphs also uses the SAME positional adjustment for 3B and CF, so that argument rings hollow anyway. To take this further, Cabrera actually received MORE benefit from his position (+1.5) than Trout did (-0.2) since Trout played 67 games in LF this year. This whole idea that Trout is being favored by WAR solely because of position is completely wrong. The positional value between the two players was basically nothing and Trout was a much better defensive player.

By the way, even ignoring defense and position (so basically just looking at offense, which is unfair, but we'll throw the Cabrera folks a bone), Trout was STILL superior once you adjust for parks: 175 wRC+ for Trout compared to Cabrera's 166 and 171 OPS+ for Trout compared to Cabrera's 166.

People/voters will unfortunately get hung up in the Triple Crown and the fact Cabrera is on a playoff team while Trout isn't. Cabrera had an excellent year, but it wasn't as good as Trout's. The Triple Crown accomplishment is cool and all, but we need to stop using stats from the early 20th century as accurate measures of offense and value.

Edited by nmigliore, 04 October 2012 - 07:33 PM.

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LETS GO METSLETS GO DEVILS

"Take all that clubhouse [expletive] and all that, throw it out the window. Every writer in the country has been writing about that [expletive] for years. Chemistry don't mean [expletive]."